London Tube Accidents Reached New High Of 4,928 In 2016

TfL has reported that accidents on the London Underground are up 11% on 2015, with nearly 5000 reported incidents. The one bright spot is that customers seem to be falling into the gap less, with 282 people not heeding the words of the intercom - down from 293 in 2015.

Baker Street is the worst offender in these gap-related incidents, claiming 62 of the total.

As TFL announced the numbers there were the usual dreary demands from politicians to make things safer and ensure that the Underground is the safest subterranean transit system in the world. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents took the award, as usual, for stating the bleeding obvious saying TFL had a "duty of care" to passengers. TFL is, presumably, well aware of that fact.

The problem, it seems, is that we're all busy trying to get places at the same time. For example, most jobs start at 9am - an entirely arbitrary time to start the working day. So perhaps rather than expecting the tube's fixed capacity to somehow expand exponentially we should encourage people to stagger the times they start at work. Companies could even allow employees to work at home, something made unbelievably simple by the other kind of tubes - the ones connecting computers to each other.

London Underground said safety was its "top priority" which is exactly what you'd expect it to say. It would hardly respond to news of increased accidents by saying "we're very focused on making the trains smell better", would it. [London Evening Standard]